Monday, March 23, 2015

Graduating to lasering metal

Several years ago -- probably before Jacob was born -- my dad dabbled in the making of knives using very hard bimetallic blades, some Corian for the handle, and heavy gauge copper as a plug. He worked with me to make my own, which Andrea and I kept in regular use in our kitchen.

I decided to take this blade to The Garage and etch Dad's signature into the blade using some fairly high-res signatures he sent me. The resulting etching turned out rather well:

I also had an extra single gang lightswitch plate, so I grabbed an image of a Douglas Fir from the flag of Cascadia; scaled, transposed, trimmed and aligned the image to the dimensions of the wall plate. The cut turned out relatively clear, and I installed it in my office at home:

Bonus points to those of you that recognize my first attempt at etching metal.